Fluid mechanics might actually be a good analogy. We know that fluid mechanics happens, and it's entirely made of already known physical interactions, yet the phenomenon is so complicated that it deserves to be its own field of study.
On the other hand, asking something like "Is viscosity a part of the fabric of the universe?" would be meaningless, because viscosity is not a property of any elementary particle or force. The complication arises out of how those groups of particles interact with each other.
At least, with fluid mechanics, there's a good physical abstraction that reduces real world phenomena into partial differential equations which work surprisingly well. When it comes to consciousness, we can't even ask "What's the consciousness per gram of this substance?" and I doubt such a question will become meaningful any time soon.
On the other hand, asking something like "Is viscosity a part of the fabric of the universe?" would be meaningless, because viscosity is not a property of any elementary particle or force. The complication arises out of how those groups of particles interact with each other.
At least, with fluid mechanics, there's a good physical abstraction that reduces real world phenomena into partial differential equations which work surprisingly well. When it comes to consciousness, we can't even ask "What's the consciousness per gram of this substance?" and I doubt such a question will become meaningful any time soon.